


Three Times Natalia Wanted to Cheat

by gilligankane



Category: Guiding Light
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-26
Updated: 2009-07-26
Packaged: 2017-11-17 10:17:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/550495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gilligankane/pseuds/gilligankane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because sometimes, she's not that much of a Saint.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Times Natalia Wanted to Cheat

**_i. during cards_ **

Olivia looks inordinately pleased with herself. She’s smirking and laughing and her aviators have slipped down on her nose.

 _Aviators_ , Natalia snorts under her breath.  _We’re in the_ house _and she’s wearing aviators_.

On cue, she adjusts her own sunglasses, lifting them a little to catch a glimpse of her cards, the tips of her fingers tracing over the  _Domino’s Pizza_  lettering on the side. She’s got a somewhat decent hand – two cards short of straight.

“If you win,” Olivia says, glancing down at her cards with a slight frown. “You get  _whatever_  you want?”

She grins triumphantly. “ _Whatever_ ,” she repeats solidly.

“And if I win…” Olivia prompts.

“If you win,  _you_  get whatever you want,” she responds quickly, her eyes narrowing. “Within  _limits_ ,” she clarifies.

Olivia pouts. “Well, I can work with that.”

They flip the turn card and Olivia groans a little in a way that makes her stomach toss and turn and seize up into her throat; in a way that makes her not even care about the flop, because she’d rather be across the table, winding her fingers into Olivia’s hair and finding the back of Olivia’s teeth with her tongue.

Although, the card doesn’t really work out for her either, marring her straight. It doesn’t even  _matter_  what the flop is, she won’t win this one.

And it’s a damn shame, she figures, because she knows  _exactly_  what she wanted from Olivia.

“Hey there spaceman, get your head out of the clouds,” Olivia calls from the other side of the kitchen table, leaning forward on her elbows. “You’ve got to bet,” she says teasingly.

 _I bet on you_ , Natalia wants to say. But her mouth says  _call_  instead and her hands push forward the right number of chips.

Olivia snorts. “Oh honey,” she crows as the river is dealt. “Oh, you poor, poor baby.”

Because Olivia has four of a kind –  _kings_  – and even if she had gotten her eight and her four, she never would have beat the other woman.

“And for my reward,” Olivia breathes out, moving up and around the table, extending a hand to Natalia. She grabs it and rises from her own seat, her body moving into Olivia’s like a perfect fit. “I was thinking,” Olivia says nonchalantly, her words and breath tickling Natalia’s ear. “That next movie night,” she continues.

Natalia can feel her heart beat faster, because next ‘movie night’ Emma isn’t going to be home.

“All the movies we watch have to be made  _before_  you were born,” she finishes with a laugh and Natalia lets out the breath she didn’t know she was holding.

Olivia thinks she’s hilarious.

Natalia just wishes she had won: Olivia would have liked it.

**_ii. during a snowstorm_ **

“Only us, huh?” Olivia quips, smiling humorlessly from the couch, from the smallest corner of the couch where she settled hours ago. Natalia shifts restlessly on the chair, looking everywhere but at the couch.

Only them – only  _they_  would get themselves locked inside the farmhouse during a snowstorm, while the rest of the world was nestled away. Only  _they_ would be awkward and uncomfortable and anxious for the storm to pass.

Frank called to say he couldn’t come home – the roads are blocked – and he was going to stay at the station until he could.

Which left Olivia on the couch, clutching the doll Emma  _couldn’t live without_  to her chest that the little girl left behind the night before, after her sleepover; which left Natalia without any small talk and folded awkwardly in the chair she’s sure no one has ever used before.  _Except for_ , she remembers _the time before we even moved in and Decker just showed up_.

Natalia just nods, tight-lipped. “Only us,” she repeats softly.

It’s the first thing she’s said since they figured out they were trapped and she muttered  _ohshitohshitohshit_  under her breath. It’s the first thing she’s said to Olivia besides  _Emma can come back next weekend too_ , _if she wants_. It’s the first time she’s let herself say anything more than  _yes, I’m happy with Frank and our house and the lack of little feet stomping up the staircase; Yes, I’m happy with Frank and my son and the absolute silence of the kitchen in the morning_.

She should say more; she should  _have been_  saying more since that graveyard, since Olivia screamed love at the top of her lungs, but she dutifully followed the other woman back to the church and married the wrong man.

It seems like she’s always marrying the wrong man these days.

“So,” Olivia starts, after too many more minutes of silence. “How’s Frank?”

Natalia winces – she physically flinches in her seat. “He’s fine,” she says tightly.

“Well, good” Olivia mumbles.

And then suddenly, it isn’t good, because Olivia is surging out of her seat, launching across the living room and coming to an abrupt stop in front of Natalia’s chair. It suddenly isn’t good, because Olivia has that look in her eyes – the one she had before, right before Natalia said  _I do_  – and she  _knows_ what that means. It suddenly isn’t good, because Natalia wants to be with Olivia just as desperately as Olivia wants to be with her.

“Natalia,” Olivia whispers, and her resolve almost breaks right there, because Frank never says her name like that: with love and hope and  _need_. “Natalia,” but she stops Olivia right there.

“Don’t,” she pleads. “Please,  _don’t_. I’m, I’m married.”

Olivia nods, but the nodding ends up being a shake. “I know, I know. I just, I’m still in love with you,” she says, her words trailing off.

“Don’t,” Natalia repeats, her voice cracking in the middle of the word.

Because if Olivia  _does_ , she’ll be an unfaithful woman, an adulterer –  _again_  – and she can’t do it. She shouldn’t have done it Harley and she can’t do it to Frank.

Even if she wants to just as bad as Olivia does.

**_iii. during the end_ **

There is a cycle to life: birth, the in between, and death. She’s heard about it her entire life and how Jesus would grant her salvation for being a member of his flock.

But there’s a realness to life that no one ever mentioned to her; a hard, long, painful process of life she never learned from the stories she was told.

She had a baby at sixteen – that was never in her fairytales.

She worked three jobs tirelessly and still didn’t have enough money for everything Rafe wanted; everything he  _needed_.

She found the man she thought she loved only to lose him again.

She was left with Olivia Spencer.

None of the bedtime stories, or the whispered fairytales  _ever_  prepared her for the life was given; for the people she was given; for Olivia Spencer. And still, those three remained: birth, the in between, and death.

She should have been prepared for this, because she  _knows_  that the ‘in between’ is followed by death.

There’s no other way for this to go, but it doesn’t stop her from dropping to her knees in the hospital chapel and  _begging_  God to do something different; to take someone else; to take  _anything_ else.

Anything but Olivia.

“Please God,” she whispers into the empty chapel. “Please take  _anything_  but her. Please don’t do this to me, not now; not her. Please give her a second wind just to get through this.” She bows her head. “You can have me,” she promises. “You can have me, just let her stay – just keep her here, with her daughters. Please don’t take her from them.”

And for the first time since before Rafe, she feels like she’s praying to no one. She feels like God has turned his back and his laughing at her petty offering, at her weak sacrifice. She feels like he’s going to let Olivia die and she’ll be left with nothing but the memories she’s been collecting for ten years now; memories that fill every space of her mind and soul. She’ll be left with a broken teenager and a broken woman, both who have their mother’s smile. She’ll be left with an empty house and an empty heart.

She’ll be left without Olivia.

She digs her knees a little harder into the cushion-covered kneeler. “Please God,” she begs.

For the first time in forever, she wonders if she’s praying to the wrong God.

And she wonders who she  _could_  pray to that would take her instead; who would let Olivia open her eyes again.


End file.
